Musharraf (Cont.)
"ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Scores of paramilitary troops blocked access to the Supreme Court and parliament. Streets in the capital appeared largely calm, with only a handful of demonstrations. But one, attended by 40 people at the Marriott Hotel, was broken up by baton-wielding police.
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Around 200 police with assault rifles and sticks * stormed the rights commission's office in the eastern city of Lahore, breaking up a meeting and arresting about 50 members, said Mehbood Ahmed Khan, legal officer for the activists.
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"Many people in Pakistan believe that it has nothing to do with stopping terrorism, and it has everything to do with stopping a court verdict that was coming against him," [former Prime Minister Bhutto Benazir] told the weekend edition of ABC News' "Good Morning America." - Associated Press, 33 minutes ago.
Phone service is back in the capital but independant media is still offline. Hundreds of arrests have been made in the last 24 hours of specific political targets of Musharraf's, such as the presidents of the bar associations, as well as prominant members of political parties other than Musharraf's.
I think its rather significant that he needs to go all nutso like this to stop the Court from making a decision. If he was in a strong political position he could surely just ignore the Court (lots of countries do that all the time), and/or the Court would avoid putting itself in such an awkward position by not actually disqualifying him (indeed, it would be shockingly saucy if they actually DID DQ him). So he must be in an extremely tenuous political situation in order to be resorting to this.
Additionally, he is an idiot. (A) Unless I'm very mistaken, the only reason he could potentially be disqualified from the recent election is because the constitution forbids him from being Army Chief of Staff and President concurrently -- it seems like he could very very easily drop the Chief of Staff title, while even retaining its de facto duties and responsibilities. (B) There's no way this "state of emergency" suspension of the Constitution is going to help his political position.
I think Musharraf is in his political death throws.
And I thought the metal detectors at the Woodland Courthouse were a hassle!
(And apparently the stahlhelm didn't go out of style in 1945 for everyone)